Two big items happened today concerning the IRS. No, the agency still exists and we have to pay taxes. However, the agency has apologized for targeting conservative groups due to their political beliefs during President Barack Obama’s administration.

Also, it’s now official that IRS Commissioner John Koskinen will leave in November as President Donald Trump announced a new leader.

Apology….Finally

Back in 2013, Lois Lerner, who directed the IRS’s Exempt Organizations unit, came under fire after conservative groups had their tax-exempt status delayed due to their political beliefs.

Court documents reveal the IRS admitted wrongdoing and apologized for the nefarious conduct.

“The IRS admits that its treatment of Plaintiffs during the tax-exempt determination process, including screening their applications based on their names or policy positions, subjecting those applications to heightened scrutiny and inordinate delays, and demanding some Plaintiffs’ information that TITA determined was unnecessary to the agency’s determination of their tax-exempt status, was wrong,” the IRS said in court documents. “For such treatment, the IRS expresses its sincere apology.”

The DOJ has settled lawsuits with these conservative groups who felt the backlash from the IRS. The department did not disclose the amount of money handed out to over 400 organizations:

“The [Internal Revenue Service]’s use of these criteria as a basis for heightened scrutiny was wrong and should never have occurred,” Sessions said in a statement Thursday. “It is improper for the IRS to single out groups for different treatment based on their names or ideological positions.”

The Trump administration reached a settlement in two separate cases, one including 41 groups and another filed by 428 plaintiffs.

“The Government’s generous settlement with the Class Plaintiffs fully vindicates their claims that the IRS targeted Tea Party and conservative groups based on their viewpoint,” lead counsel for the conservative groups, Eddie Greim, told Fox News in an email. “However, like Lois Lerner’s stated apology back in 2013, any recent so-called ‘apology’ by the IRS has little value. That is because the Service continues to suggest that its targeting was really just ‘mismanagement.’”

Greim added: “This story was dismantled in our case. For taxpayers to be truly confident that the IRS has changed, it needs to be truthful about its past abuse of power.”

New IRS Leader

David Kautter, the current assistant secretary for tax policy at the Treasury Department, will take over as interim leader of the IRS in November when Koskinen’s term expires.

“David will provide important leadership while we wait to confirm a permanent commissioner,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement.

It was expected that Koskinen wouldn’t be reappointed, since he was hired by President Barack Obama and is loathed by congressional Republicans, some of whom tried to impeach him in 2016. Whoever is appointed to replace Koskinen on a permanent basis may have two high-profile and sensitive jobs: helping implement President Donald Trump’s proposed tax cuts and overseeing an audit of the president’s tax returns.

Comments

“Whoever is appointed to replace Koskinen on a permanent basis may have two high-profile and sensitive jobs: helping implement President Donald Trump’s proposed tax cuts and overseeing an audit of the president’s tax returns.”

Stay classy, Bloomberg.

Koskinen is getting off entirely too easily. He should never hold another government post ever.

Whoever was working under Koskinen was probably working under him during the scandals, so it won’t be an improvement.
I’m far more interested in who Trump appoints as a replacement, and what kind of reception they get in Congress.

Well, having govt money directed to organizations they loather is pretty much the only penalty these people will feel.

Any payment doesn’t come from them. They don’t feel embarrassment or shame. They’re not bothered by demonstrations they have no ethics, or of their illogic or inconsistency.

Their cool-kids’ club ensures that even Heather who don’t conveniently get to retire into “What difference, at this point, does it make!” land somewhere safe and lucrative.

There’s literally no way to get at them, except to redirect the patronage hose they so energetically direct toward their clients, toward someone else.

Hey, what’s the point of winning if you can’t get a payoff?

What’s the point of playing if you aren’t gonna win?

Next, how about penalties on banks and so on for dishonest practices go to people who lost their houses or pensions? The EPA has already changed policy so “judgments” go to the people poisoned, or similar, not the operatives who brought a suit.

We’ll know it’s working when the EPA pays something out to the folks in the (temporarily) yellow river valley, you know, the one they poisoned. No prosecution on that one, perhaps because a win would have taken govt money vs. money from the “bad guys” and routed it to the victims not fellow travelers.

I’d be less cynical if “resolving” Detroit’s water problem had come out differently.

Exactly. I like your idea of heads rolling. The guillotine has been badly maligned. When this story broke I was so angry fashioned a terrible pop-up card depicting three people hanging by their necks but I never sent it to anybody. It was just therapy. I’m sure it’s still around in the craft room. Not like me to throw away such a thing. I titled it I.R.S. retraining center. Care to see it?

Why isn’t anyone asking why these organizations should have tax exemption? Does everyone really think they deserve this status? Just more political welfare. The whole entitlement should be repealed so these political organizations are taxed like any other business.

That has been asked. And answered. It’s not just tax exemption, it has to do with all the laws surrounding paying taxes. Tax exempt organizations do not have to list the names of their donors while tax paying organizations do have to list names. And listing names provides targets for crackpot activists as we’ve seen done illegally by outing supporters of tax exempt organizations that were against gay marriage who were then personally targeted for attacks. Things get vicious where emotion is involved.

That works both ways as supporters also are maligned. But that should not be a reason to make an organization tax exempt. Neither lib or conservative should have that designation. If the sole purpose is to make donors invisible, then the IRS better be more diligent in refusing to grant 501c status.

So we have absolutely no penalty for those who actually broke the law. Koskinen suffers no penalty beyond leaving his job when he was scheduled to. And there is no disincentive for the Left to do it again, or even now since they still run most Executive departments because McConnell is slow walking Trump’s appointments; as soon as they get a chance.

I won’t call you a liar as you do others but your statements are a bit of a stretch don’t you think considering Koskinen was appointed by the previous tenure. That’s like saying every day Comey was FBI director since Trump took office was because he wanted Comey to be FBI director.

This scummy woman is apologizing only because she got caught, and only because she became so vilified, and only because she’s threatened with prosecution because hillary clinton screwed up the election.

Screw her and her apology. Her villany will live on forever. Hopefully, she’l l be prosecuted and sued into ruin.

This is woefully inadequate for the weaponization of one of the most-feared Executive agencies for political purposes.

This illegal IRS harassment and targeting was key in undermining the momentum and then-growing power of the Tea Party movement. That movement was so significant that lefties are still dreaming about and trying to manufacture its success. So threatening were we that political and media attacks weren’t enough, we had to be intimidated and shut down via the IRS.

Everything worked as intended: the Tea Party was a growing and strong political force, sic the IRS on them, watch them dwindle away. Later, we’ll just say, “Ooopsie!” and all will be well.

The message with this too-little, too-late apology and lack of actual consequences: Lather, rinse, repeat.